The rapid advances and convergence of technologies such as MEMS (Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems) sensor devices, wireless networks and low-power embedded processors have enabled a new generation of large-scale wireless sensor networks (WSN). In the near future, tiny and cheap sensors may be extensively embedded within our living environment for sensing a large variety of physical phenomena of interest to users. Unlike information services on the Internet where the information often becomes stale or even useless, sensor networks can seamlessly couple the physical environment with the digital world and deliver useful real-time information to users according to their needs.
Wireless sensor networks have attracted tremendous interest in the industry because they have many important applications including environmental monitoring, healthcare, industrial automation, military and homeland security, disaster warning and rescue, manufacturing and logistics, intelligent transportation, safety monitoring of urban and civil infrastructures, smart grid, smart buildings and homes, and many other applications that we do not yet imagine.
These enormous business prospects spurred investments in the development of sensor network platform technologies at both the hardware and software operating platform level. At the hardware level, the sensor nodes offer a mix of sensing, processing, communication and storage capabilities. Some commonly used sensor node platforms include the MicaZ, iMote2, IRIS, TelosB, Atmel Raven, Gumstix and Sentilla JCreate from vendors such as Memsic, Atmel, Gumstix and Sentilla.
However, these hardware platforms differ in the processor specifications, storage file system, communication protocols and sensor technologies. At the operating and programming platform level, these sensor node platforms are based on different platforms such as TinyOS, Contiki, .Net Micro Framework, embedded Linux, Sentilla, etc. In addition, the wireless communication protocols also vary from platform to platform and there exists a plethora of different protocols that are supported by various vendors. Some common wireless networking protocols for sensor networks include IEEE 802.15.4, ZigBee, TinyOS MAC, 6LoWPAN, SICSLoWPAN, and GSM/3G.